Welcome to CIDADE FM’s SCENE! Here you’ll find: CIDADE FM staff- in the groups, in Messenger, in the blogs. They become your friends IMMEDIATELY. The crew that likes the music that suits you. You don’t come across with weird folks. The pics and blogs of the cutest people!

When i was working here at a local radio, i discussed with my superiors how developing social networks is an important item for any communication company. Back then, they told me that was stupid, and that the internet is all about fun and games for most users, and since it wouldn’t bring any money, it had no appeal. By the way, that radio station didn’t even had a website,or much of anything really…

So when i found out that CIDADE FM (a national radio that has a similar dance/pop music audience like the one i worked for) has it’s own Hi5-like social network, i remembered that conversation and how i felt i was in a totally different current. I had already seen the freaking Matrix.

Whether you like the kind of radio Cidade FM is or not, we must agree they have been quite successful, and are ahead of many.What do you think about it?

This study examines how the world’s largest news organization, the BBC, has sought to incorporate blogging in its journalism, both as a format for new journalistic thinking and as a platform for greater accountability and transparency. The research covers a period of seven years, from 2001 to 2008, when the BBC came under intense scrutiny over its journalism and mechanisms for public accountability. It is based on an analysis of internal and public policy documents produced by the BBC, blog content on BBC and personal websites and the personal recollections of senior editors at the corporation. The findings suggest that the BBC is approaching blogging as a tool to enhance trust with audiences through expanded transparency and accountability, in an attempt to transform its historical elitist attitude towards its audiences. But, at the same time, the BBC is grappling with fitting this online format within its long-established journalism norms and practices, seeking to normalize blogs within existing journalistic frameworks.

A nationally prominent investor offered a number of penetrating observations the other day about what ails the newspaper business. His rundown is worth a quick read.

:: A monopoly mindset: “The newspaper business basically grew up as a monopoly, and like every other monopoly, it built processes and approaches that reflected its monopoly status.”

: An outmoded concept of news: “When I grew up, the definition of ‘breaking news’ was [the newspaper delivered to] your front door…. Well, that’s not the case anymore. Now, you hit your homepage, now you turn on CNN, or some other news-TV program, and that’s how you find out what the latest news is.”

Politicians, celebrities and company executives are trained and protected. They are coached to avoid making inaccurate or indefensible claims. They pay people to guard them from making gaffes that might come back and haunt them. That makes whatever they say fair game for accurate reporting. By definition, an inexperienced interviewee has no such support or guidance. They don’t always think deeply about how the press works. For example, they may be comfortable speaking frankly and colourfully about a boss, an organisation or a neighbour in conversation with a friendly interviewer. But they may be horrified at the consequence of seeing those remarks in cold print and in a hostile different context.

Anyway, after all the perspective-altering news last week about the economy, reading Jeff Jarvis’s essay on how to cure the ills of the news business was a bit of nostalgia for the good old days and showed me why Jeff has good attendance at his conferences among people who want to believe in The Long Tail, and in the primacy of the 20th century model for news and entertainment, but it was very clear to me why that point of view is now completely irrelevant.

This is the point of view of news that’s relevant: the point of view of the user of news.

A user wants to know how he or she is going to get news.

And when they see lies and BS in the news, they think about how they can get accurate information.

We all know how it goes: we have to get the information, edit and publish it as fast as we can. Time in journalism is a luxury that most of the times can’t simply afford. But with all the multitasking demanded to journalists nowadays* how can we do everything fast and well?

Investment matters
But there is instruction the newspapers could take to heart, history unfurling a solution worth looking at.
In May 1846 a group of American newspapers pooled their resources to maximise their range, news gathering from Europe.

Back then the Internet was the catalyst, a VictorianInternet – The Telegraph.

So what if now, online news makers pooled their video.

I understand how video made in Cumbria will be specific to that region, but here’s where the VJs rethink more laterally.

The 1st quadrant body of the video could be loose enough to refer to any community. This might give rise to an evolving format, and a new video agency could emerge.

It would foster competition amongst newspaper groups. They’ll become their own arbiters of the content and the politics of aesthetic.

I must highlight that people are organizing themselves in the blogosphere, and besides delivering information, they’re trying to solve some problems, like the whereabouts of som homeless, making their current location known in this blog: Blog dos Desabrigados de Itajaí.Do you know any other links to follow this situation? It’s in events like this that we can really see the power and the potential of social media and community.

It’s fair to expect me to put forward scenarios for the future of news. In a sense, that’s all I ever do here, but there’s no one permalink summarizing my apparently endless prognostication. So here is a snapshot of – a strawman for – where I think particularly local news might go. What follows is just a long – I’m sorry – summary of what I’ve written here over time and an extension of the one model I think we need to expand coming out of the conference, where one lesson I took away is that news – on both the content and business side – will no longer be controlled by a single company but will be collaborative.

* The next generation of local (news) won’t be about news organizations but about their communities. News is just one of the community’s needs. It also needs elegant organization. News companies and networks can help provide that. The bigger goal is to provide platforms that enable communities to do what they want to do, share what they want to share, know what they need to know together. News will become a product of the community as much as it is a service to it.